Kim BrattainFounder/ CEO, Kim Brattain Media · Award-winning Corporate and Documentary Film Producer

City of Charlotte Landscaping Management | The Beech Tree

27 Jan 2026 · 1 min

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1:02

In this brief segment, Suzanne introduces the American beech tree, a common species throughout Charlotte and the Southeast. She highlights its easy identification by its smooth, gray‑silver bark and its striking foliage that shifts from green to gold and bronze in autumn. Suzanne notes the tree’s slow growth and remarkable longevity—300 to 400 years—and shares a historical anecdote about a beech in Tennessee bearing a Daniel Boone carving that still lives today. She describes the tree’s wide, outward‑growing branches that provide extensive shade, emphasizing its value as a generational, legacy tree that contributes to Charlotte’s reputation as the “City of Trees.”

Chapters

Hi, I'm Suzanne with another amazing tree that makes Charlotte the City of Trees. This is the beech tree, and you'll see a lot of them in Charlotte and really throughout the Southeast. They're very common down here. Let's take a closer look. I want to show you something. The beech tree is very easy to identify because of the bark. Look, it's a very smooth bark, and in terms of color, it's gray, silver, almost shiny in some cases. The leaves are spectacular. They start out green, obviously, but then in the fall they turn to gold and then bronze, which is an amazing It's an amazing show of color. Now, the beech tree grows very slowly, and it can live to be 300 to 400 years old. In fact, there's a beech tree in Tennessee that Daniel Boone carved a message in, and you can still see it today because it's alive. And the branches grow outwards, so they give a lot of shade to someone's backyard. The nicest thing about the beech tree is that it will be here for generations. It truly is one of the legacy trees that makes this the City of Trees.